Can I put tiny chicks back in incubator

[Mamc]

Help! I’m a first time chick Hatcher. We started eggs and then 3 days later were given a dozen silkie bantam eggs. Our first eggs hatched six chicks and we moved them to the brooder when they were nice and fluffy. The silkies hatched 3 days later and only 4 so far. One was weak and died in the incubator. A couple eggs have pips and they may still hatch. I had to open the incubator and take out the dead chick so I took out the egg shells and also put the 3 tiny chicks in with the others. Immediately the regular chicks started pecking the tiny bantam babies. So I scooped them up and put the new bantams back in the incubator. I put a water dish in there since they had drunk water in the brooder.
Any advice? Do I just have to set up a separate brooder for these 3 bantams? Can you add eggs to an incubator once it starts? Where did I go wrong?

 

[NatJ]

You might have to set up a separate brooder, or you might be able to divide one brooder (a piece of hardware cloth or chicken wire can work.) You might be able to put them together in a few days, after the silkies are good at running around and after they've had a chance to get used to each other through the divider. Or it might not work. Silkies sometimes do fine in an ordinary flock, but I've read of some that just had to be raised separately because they always got picked on.


In future, it's much easier if you put the eggs in all on one day, so the chicks hatch at the same time. What you did can work, it's just a bit more complicated to deal with, as you found out.